


Generosity

by BleedingHeartCrow



Category: Long Chain On – Jimmie Driftwood (Song)
Genre: Fantasy AU, M/M, POV First Person, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-09 23:49:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8918386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingHeartCrow/pseuds/BleedingHeartCrow
Summary: A young man burdened by guilt meets a stranger with much more literal burdens.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Poetry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poetry/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, Poetry! This was such an interesting prompt to write for. Thinking about fairy-tale logic took me in a more fantastic direction for this piece; I hope it's not a bridge too far.

"Always be generous to strangers and travelers," my mother told me, long ago. "We who live in the woods must be kind to one another."

The first time I saw the man with the chain, I was twenty-one years old, in the fourth month of my exile. In my solitude I lived by my mother's words, though I had few opportunities to be kind. The chained stranger was the first human being I'd seen in three weeks, and for that alone I might have loved him. 

It was late-winter twilight when I saw him approaching my cabin door, and the first thing I noticed was how the soft light hit his face: a face with the soft contours of youth but an expression of long suffering. The chains made it obvious just where that suffering came from, and the last lingering note of fear I held in my chest evaporated as I saw them. It seems strange to say now -- a stranger walking towards me, bound in heavy chains, and my fear left me? But those chains meant he was not one of the Crown's Hunters, nor a hired mercenary. This man was not here for me. 

Before he could reach the door, I opened it to greet him. It was a calm and pleasant night, by the standards of that brutal winter, but there was still a stinging cold in the air; I only noticed once I stepped outside that the man's chains were wet. I winced then, at the thought of frigid wet metal biting into flesh, and the man stopped. "Pardon me," he said, in a voice so soft it startled me. "I would not trouble you."

"It's all right. I've -- I've been a while without company."

"This is lonely country. Might you have a meal to spare, friend? I have had a long journey."

"Yes, of course," I said. My larder was not abundant, but there was enough to feed a traveler. "Come in and rest." 

My cabin was no palace in the wilderness, but for two people, it was comfortable enough. A fire burnt warm and steady in the hearth, and the chained stranger took a seat in front of it as I prepared him a bowl of deer stew and a slab of rough bread. "Would you like tea?" I said. "I have wildflower tea. It's good for sleep."

"You are kind," he said, "but I had best not. I have more journey ahead of me tonight, and I cannot afford to sleep."

"Are you certain? There may be more snow, and I have blankets. It wouldn't trouble me if you stayed the night." In fact, it was welcome. In the firelight, his face was softer and yet somehow more tired than it had been -- the face of a fugitive. In my long isolation, I found a kindred soul in him, and all I wanted in that moment was to understand his suffering.

"No," he said, "it's all right. I am grateful for your kindness, but there are places I must go."

"But those chains --" And in that moment, I remembered my father's toolbox, the tools inside kept clean and ready in the dry root cellar. "You must let me break them for you." Emboldened by my own hunger, I touched a length of chain looped over his shoulder; the wet steel was deeply pitted. It would only be a few moment's work with a chisel. 

The stranger shook his head, and he smiled slightly -- the first time, I realized, he had smiled. "Leave them be, my friend. They are better off where they are." 

I didn't understand, of course. How could I have then, knowing how little I did, imagining his troubles were of this world? My disappointment and confusion must have shown on my face, because he moved swiftly to speak again, before I could respond. "Tell me, my friend. Has the Border River thawed yet, this far east? Can it be crossed?"

I told him what I could of the path ahead, and he ate and listened. If we spoke of anything else, I cannot recall it now -- I suppose not everything of that evening matters, in the end. When he had eaten his fill and learned what I could tell him, he rose to his feet. "Thank you," he said. "I must go."

And so he went, my stranger in chains, the one I imagined as my fellow. Even as the door closed behind him, I missed him. 

It would be five years before his return. They were five years of deepening solitude, of the sort of resignation that can pass for contentment. Rarely did a week pass that I did not think of him: his weary face, his corroded chains, his reluctant smile.

* * *

When my chained friend returned, it was high summer, and my larder was overflowing. I welcomed him in again with the promise of a feast: roast of dry-aged bear with young tubers, a bowl overflowing with the dark berries and tiny sweet apples of the borderland forests, and the dry thistle wine I'd spent years perfecting. He ate at my table, but slowly and hesitantly, and he did not speak until the plates were clear again. "My friend. Please, tell me. King Ranolf of Aristin -- how long has he been dead?"

Why would a man like my friend care about such things? Was he a disguised agent of the Crown, searching these lands for me? It was all I could do to hold back the fear. "Ah, five or six years, I believe?"

"And is he memorialized? A tomb, a museum? How has the kingdom preserved his treasures? He was a wealthy man, King Ranolf."

Was he waiting for me to reveal myself? Or were his questions honest -- the questions of a tomb-robber, hoping to find a kindred spirit? And if they were... was he so wrong? "I don't know. I don't travel into the capital... and this is not a land of treasure."

"I see," said the chained traveler. "... You are afraid. I suppose I should explain. There is one treasure of King Ranolf's that I seek, and it was lost here, in the borderlands. May I tell you my story?"

"Of course. You can tell me anything."

He smiled then, perhaps at my earnestness -- or simply my youth. "Very well. Many years ago, when I was a young man, I was a stablehand in the court of King Ranolf. I became known for my skill with horses, and one season, when the king organized his hunting expedition along the border, he arranged for me to accompany him. It was quite an honor; I was low-born, and the hunting expedition was for the sons of wealth, even its servants."

He was silent for a moment. "It all fell apart so quickly. Things began to disappear from packs and saddlebags, and one day, the king himself was the victim of the thief. A fine hunting knife was stolen, an heirloom of his grandfather, and blame fell on me -- after all, did I not dote on the King's horse, so close to his saddlebags? The fact that they could not find the knife among my belongings was no defense. I had hid it, the king said, or passed it to an accomplice. He was a willful man when he was angered."

"One of the king's wizards was part of the expedition, and it was given to him to act out my punishment," my chained friend continued. "The king would have had me killed for the theft, but the wizard had other plans. He bound me in these chains and laid my curse on me -- that I should wander these lands, bound like a prisoner and forever searching, until I return the knife to the Crown. Upon the knife's return, or if the chains are broken some other way... I will be released. From my life."

"You are bound by magic? Is that why..." It was impossible to ask, and yet impossible to ignore, as I watched his ageless face. The Tyrant had taken the throne forty years ago, and yet the stranger was still a young man, despite the vast burden placed upon him.

"Why time does not change me? Perhaps. I know very little of magic -- only that the curse and chains bind me to the world, and that to break them is to leave it. At first, I was certain the knife would turn up, and dying seemed preferable to living in chains. Then the knife became a distant dream, and I became more used to this existence. Today, I expect I will never be freed, and yet I must still wonder. If the knife rests in a museum or a tomb, waiting for me, my work is quite nearly at its end. Does this help you to understand?"

"No," I said, and with that truth, the rest came pouring from me. "I'm sorry. You have to know -- I... I have that knife. My father was a highwayman, and he stole from a nobleman's carriage, years ago. One of the things inside was a jeweled knife with the Crown's seal, engraved to King Ansgar."

"Ranolf's grandfather," he said, softly. "I see."

"Stealing a royal antique is a hanging crime -- for the thief's whole family. We couldn't sell it, of course, or throw it away and risk anyone else finding it. I was the oldest son, and I told my father... I'd take it into the woods, to our cabin. Protect it. Alone. So nobody would know of our crime. It's still here, in the root cellar."

"Yes. I see. ... Will you take me to it, friend?"

And so, with trepidation in my heart, I led my chained friend to the root cellar. If he was to reveal himself here, at least I would be the only one to die for my father's crime... but what, I thought, if his story was true? If the knife was truly the key to his curse, and to free himself would kill him, would he choose to die? Why wouldn't he, after so many years of suffering? 

I dug up the familiar patch of earth, and he watched me silently all the while. When I opened the cloth-wrapped bundle that had lain below the soil, the candlelight fell on the gold and jewels of the knife's scabbard: so nearly a gaudy thing, and yet beautiful, almost graceful. I withdrew the blade, reading its gilded inscription once again. _To Ansgar upon his coronation day; may he rule wisely and well._ To hold it had sent me into the woods in exile. To be blamed for its loss had sent my friend into solitude and chains. All for a king's souvenir.

"Yes," my friend said, with a quiet reverence. "... I never thought to see it again. May I...?"

I could have refused him; I do not think he would have resisted me. I could have held him forever in the world, had I chosen it. Instead, I sheated the blade and offered him the hilt. He took it in his long, delicate hands, and he turned away towards the stairs. "Thank you," he said. "... I suppose it must return to the capital. I had never thought that far ahead."

When he left that night, I did not expect to see him again. His journey would soon be over, after all. It was cold comfort that my long exile might be over as well; in truth, I had lost any desire to return to my family and the world I had left behind. That life had ended long ago, and a second life had begun -- and now, with the death of hope that my chained man might return, might _stay_ , I had ended that life and begun another, quieter, more hollow.

I went on living, of course. What else does one do?

* * *

Three years passed, and the pain faded, replaced by the now-familiar comforts of solitude. At thirty years old, I thought myself a very different man than I had been at twenty-seven, let alone twenty-two; I still had the vain assurance of youth that said that the passage of a few years was a complete transformation. The last thing I expected, on a balmy night in spring, was that my chained stranger might return.

I had been sick that winter, and I lay in bed near the window when I heard his approach: the gentle melody of metal against metal. My weakness lay heavy on me, and yet I found the strength to stand and open my door. I did not speak. What could I possibly have said? 

He stepped inside. "Good evening, friend. Might I beg your company?"

"You came back. Why? You... you had the knife. You were free."

"I buried the knife in the forest," he said. "Call it spite, if you like. King Ranolf's ghost can find it, if he wants it. There is too much kindness in this world for me to be ready to leave -- and none have ever been so kind to me as you. Will you welcome me, once again?"

"... I don't have much food. Just gruel. I've been ill."

"That will do. Do you still have that wildflower tea you offered me on that first evening? I would like to sleep."

"Yes, I do, friend. ... Can I call you friend?"

"You may call me what you like," he said, and reached for my hand. At his touch, I felt my strength returning, as if a burden was lifted from my shoulders. My chained stranger -- no longer a stranger -- leaned in and whispered his name into my ear.

We drank wildflower tea together that night, but it was nearly dawn before we slept. I learned many things beyond his name that night: first, that a kiss dreamed of for years might still have the power to surprise; second, that a cursed man could still be blessed with warmth in the limbs and heat in the blood; and finally, that the touch of chains to skin could be sweet.

* * *

If love can break curses, as the stories say, my beloved's curse is made of stronger stuff. He still wanders, when the urge takes him, but less and less as the years go by; it's a week or two a season, these days, and the urge is satisfied by seeing the pile of stones that mark the knife's resting place. I keep the fire burning for him, and he always comes home.

We've talked about it, though, by the firelight, his hand in mine -- that one day, when my strength fails me at last, we'll dig the knife up and take one last journey to the capital to see his curse broken. We'll discover the next world together.

That day will come when it comes, but for now, I'm in no hurry. This cottage in the woods is no prison, and this world is no hardship. Once, we were burdened by a dead king's curse; today, and every day to come, we are blessed.


End file.
